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I fired up my Tracker 2 this last weekend while I was in my garage and it was picking up a signal in search mode (with no other beacons on in the area). It kept reading a distance of 10, I moved into a different part of the house and it still was reading a distance of 10. I haven't tested it away from the house yet. Anyone else experienced this before?
In before hate on Tracker 2
Don't take your garage into avalanche terrain.
Any fluorescent lighting in said garage?
Cell phone in your pocket?
Cordless tool batteries on chargers.
Electrostatic air filter in furnace.
Breaker panel.
Etc... etc.
Yep.... tons of things can cause electrical interference and give you phantom signals. Have a high voltage power line running near your house?
Looks like a lot of things can cause a false signal. Phew. I thought my beacon was toast after just a year. I'll retest it out and away from the all the house stuff
my Tracker 3 alerts on my television.
not saying there isn't any problem with yours, but it's prob just interference.
Certainly wouldn't want to have to do a search with a digital beacon under the power lines at La Rosiere/La Thuile - one of the main transmission circuits from France to Italy and LOTS of interference back in the analogue beacon days when you could hear it instead of having to rely on the signal processing to reject it.
EMI - same reason people advise keeping phones/electronics away from your beacon while traveling in the backcountryTM
Make sure you only use alkaline batteries in BCA trackers. I put lithimums in mine and it pushed the frequency signal a few degrees off of 457 mHz, it was still within the acceptable range but I felt like I could notice while doing searches.
Only ever use alkaline batteries in a beacon.Quote:
Originally Posted by brutah
It's what they're designed to give battery life % for.
There are a couple beacons now that can accept lithium batteries. You generally need to change a setting in the beacon.Quote:
Originally Posted by PNWbrit
Mine can take lithiums. I see no reason to change from just using high quality alkalines though.
Yep I know that some can take lithium with setting change.Quote:
Originally Posted by adrenalated
But this.
The Mammut Barryvox Pulse recognizes and adjusts for Lithium batteries, which last much longer (both in use and especially in storage), don’t leak (which happened to me using alkalines and required sending it away for servicing), are much less impacted by cold temperatures, and are lighter. They’re a cheap upgrade if your transceiver accepts them.Quote:
Originally Posted by adrenalated
PoltergeistQuote:
Originally Posted by N1CK.
Wasn't the point of not using lithium's that when they die it's sudden and total, whereas alkaline's tend to fade off giving some measurable warning?
Correct me if I'm mistaken. I use lithium's in most everything, except my beacon.
More accurately, alkaline and lithium batteries have different voltage vs. discharge curves. Lithium batteries have very flat curves - the voltage stays fairly constant until the battery is nearly completely discharged, then drops rapidly. Alkaline batteries experience a more gradual voltage drop as the battery discharges. The battery indicators on the majority of beacons are calibrated for the discharge curve of alkaline batteries so functionally yes - if you stick a lithium battery in a beacon designed only for alkaline, it will read a very high battery level right up until just before the batteries die.Quote:
Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark
Thanks for the confirmation. So how do the newer beacon's detect voltage drop with lithiums?Quote:
Originally Posted by adrenalated
I'm not 100% sure but just from looking at the graphs there IS a voltage drop on lithium batteries as well, it's just a lot more gradual over the first 80%-ish of the battery capacity. So I'd imagine the designers simply just program both curves in.Quote:
Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark
Any electricity wizards, please feel free to correct any inaccuracies.
it's basically just a timer. or that's how it was explained to me by the Pieps rep.Quote:
Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark
Quote:
Originally Posted by N1CK.
mark it with your probeQuote:
Originally Posted by Core Shot
Don't confuse voltage and current (amperage/wattage).
Did you check the pockets of that hitchhiker you buried in the basement?
adrenalated is correct. It is voltage drop.
Here’s a nice chart courtesy of Eveready showing how lithium batteries hold reserve power better under a constant draw. At 0.8 Volts the battery is dead.
Attachment 309033
CorrectQuote:
Originally Posted by adrenalated
Uhhhh, that chart shows the current drop if I'm not mistaken.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted Striker
Well, watts divided by volts over time.
Here are the curves:
Lithium AAA pretty flat, the a nosedive to dead.
Attachment 309034
Alkaline AAA
Attachment 309035
All three charts show the differences between battery chemistry and battery life.Quote:
Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn
If your position is that the power meter is measuring current draw, I'll bet you $37 that it's actually measuring battery voltage. Just like a multi-meter. Except it probably goes one step further and measures the Vbattery open circuit and compares it to the voltage drop across a known resistance.
There are so many people wearing beacons, I test mine on the lift line. Multiple signals when in search mode.
Just to be sure
I have a tracker 2 as well. Are you ever gonna take it away from the house and figure out what the phantom signal is? Or should we just debate battery life more?
Sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted Striker
But a simple AAA, AA, C, or D will show 1.5v until it doesn't. And it will show that 1.5v on a simple tester past where it would still power a TV remote, most likely. There has to be some kind of load to give you current left in the thing.
Or just use some more big words I don't understand lol.
Just saying, when you turn on your Tracker and it says 99, that is current, for a large part. Not voltage. If it wasn't getting about the full voltage requirement, it wouldn't even turn on.
Or so I understand things.
The man has a point (I think) but most importantly the T2 is still a pretty decent tool for finding someone as long as there is not a TV on in the room.Quote:
Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn
No, he's wrong
Here is the voltage measurement of a battery that I pulled from a headlamp that was getting dim:Quote:
Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn
Attachment 309330
And all three batteries were that low.
1.1 volts under no load is well under the battery's nominal voltage of 1.5V, and pretty close to being dead.
Yet when I put those batteries in my tracker 2 it not only powered up, but had no problem finding my barryvox (until I put my phone up to it to take the pic)
Attachment 309334
@ stuck, I get what you're saying, but think of it this way...
An alkaline battery makes electricity through a chemical reaction where the cathode wants electrons from the anode, so they get pulled through the device's circuit to get there, and power the device in the process.
And there's no way for battery companies to know how much resistance/impedance someone might design into their circuit, so they publish a chart that shows voltage drop with a constant current draw over time.
V=IR, so circuit designers can extrapolate, but since a brand new battery has very little internal resistance compared to when it's depleted, at some point the battery's increasing internal resistance will compete with the device's circuit and the battery will drop voltage across itself instead of across the device's circuit.
Which is why voltage is a good measurement of remaining battery life.
^^^^
Well said
Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums
Wonder how much temperature affects battery discharge curves? If a particular type of battery has a very flat discharge curve it wouldn't take much temperature variability to completely screw up the estimation of life remaining.
Lithium battery chemistry is much more temperature independent than alkaline or nimh. Arguably better than nicd.Quote:
Originally Posted by nickinbc
Thanks.
I was just trying to point out that someone seemed to get voltage and current confused. I'm surprised you get 65% there, but of course you've got way more than 65% original voltage, so that is not what it's measuring. That's all.
The battery was below 20% at that point (the transmit light wasn't flashing in send mode). The pic shows the beacon in search mode, and the 6.5 m is the other beacon.Quote:
Originally Posted by stuckathuntermtn
And the math doesn't work that way, i.e. 50% on the battery indication doesn't mean half of the "original" or nominal voltage. It can't, because .75v is essentially a dead battery.
My Tracker 3 consistently led me to the fridge when I used it indoors. The fridge had beer in it, so I couldn't complain.
Oh, haha, duh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted Striker